CHASE swore. Loudly.
My mind raced through the possibilities. Brock had figured out what had happened. Chase had underestimated his time before the MM came after him. We’d been seen together at the gas station.
This couldn’t be happening. We had to get to South Carolina. My mother was waiting for us.
“Can you outrun them?” My question was met with a withering look. “Go!” I shouted.
“Ember, listen. Reach in the bag behind the seat. There’s a weapon in the bottom zippered pouch. Give it to me,” Chase ordered.
I hesitated.
“Now!”
I jerked upright and stuffed my hand as smoothly as I could into the pack.
“Easy,” he cued.
“I know.” Anyone behind us would be able to see through the back window of the cab. My fingers found the zipper. I pulled it aside, feeling something solid and cold rest against my palm.
“Oh…” A knot lodged in my throat.
“Hurry up,” he said sharply.
Very slowly, I pulled the handgun over the seat, hiding it from the window with my arm. I dropped it on the leather between us, retracting my hand immediately. Without the holster covering it, the exposed gun looked lethally ominous. The way it had looked in the woods, aimed at my chest.
Chase must have removed it at the gas station when he’d changed. He hid it now in his belt, beneath his flannel shirt.
“If I tell you to run, do it,” he said. “Go straight into the woods and don’t look back. Do not, under any circumstances, let them find you.”
I shuddered. I’d suspected that I would be thrown back into rehab if I was found, but Chase’s tone scared me. It insinuated something far worse.
My mind was reeling. He wanted me to run. To leave him alone with the soldiers when I was the reason his life was at risk. But I couldn’t have Chase’s imprisonment on my conscience. Not after what I’d done to Sean and Rebecca.
But I had to get to my mother. That was my only priority. Wasn’t it?
“What are you going to do?” I asked as the truck’s speed decreased.
He didn’t answer.
As much as Chase had changed, as much as the darkness in his eyes unsettled me, it seemed impossible that he would consider killing someone. Still…
I snatched the blanket out from behind the seat and covered my skirt. I hoped that the soldier wouldn’t know that my sweater was part of a reformatory ensemble. It looked mainstream enough.
Chase pulled onto the side of the road and turned off the vehicle, blocking the wired area below the dash from view with his knees. I glanced at his navy uniform pants and hoped the patrolman didn’t look down.
The seconds passed with biting intensity, until finally a soldier stepped out of the passenger side of the cruiser. The sound of the door slamming was as loud as a cannon firing in my ears. In the mirror I saw that another stayed behind in the driver’s seat.
The man that approached was older than most of the soldiers I’d seen, with a stark, silver comb-over that topped his weathered face. He sauntered to the front door and motioned for Chase to roll down his window. In my peripheral vision, I watched my companion’s every move.
“License and registration,” the soldier said, just like the cops used to say before the MM took over. There was a handheld scanner in his right hand.
Chase reached across my lap to open the dash. When his forearm rested on my knee, the warmth from his skin spread up my leg, and my sharp intake of breath smelled of soap and home and safety. The feeling faded as quickly as it had come. He grabbed a thin piece of paper the size of a note card and handed it to the officer.
“Sorry. A soldier took my ID during our last inspection. Said it was part of the census. He said I could still drive.”
“Yeah, yeah,” nodded the highway patrol, as though this were a commonplace occurrence. I remembered the way Bateman had tucked my mother’s ID into his pocket during her arrest.
The soldier scanned the bar code on the registration and squinted at a tiny screen, presumably checking for outstanding warrants. I was ready to crawl out of my skin.
“Lucky there’s a freeze on car payments, Mr. Kandinsky. Your registration’s expired. Three years.”
Chase nodded. The soldier handed back the registration.
“So, where you headed?” he asked. “Town’s cleared. Been empty for months.”
My hands squeezed each other with bone-breaking intensity. I flipped them over to hide the bruises.
“I know,” Chase lied smoothly. “My aunt’s got a place just down a-ways. I told her I’d check in on it. We’ve got a pass.”
“Let’s see it.”
Chase reached into his pocket. Just beside the gun. I turned to face the opposite window, eyes squeezed shut. My fingers clenched in the blanket as I braced for the gunfire.
He’s going to do it, I thought. He’s going to shoot this man.
“I saw it in your jacket pocket,” I blurted. Soldier or not, this man had done nothing to us. Chase shot me a scathing look.
“This your girlfriend?” asked the soldier, finally registering my presence. His eyes were roaming over my hands. I forced them to steady.
“My wife,” Chase answered between his teeth.
Yes, of course. An unmarried couple would be issued an Indecency Citation for spending time alone together so close to curfew. It occurred to me the soldier had been looking at my hands for a ring. If we lived through this, I’d have to find some cheap jewelry.
“Good thing,” he commented. My stomach twisted.
Chase looked at me. “In my jacket? Really?” He winced. “Damn. I left it at home then. I’m sorry, sir.”
“What was the number?” the soldier tested.
“U-fourteen. That was it, wasn’t it honey?”
I nodded, trying not to look petrified.
“It was a blue form, about this big.” Chase motioned with his hands the size of an index card.
“Yeah, that’s the right form.” The soldier bounced the scanner in his opposite hand, thinking. “I’m letting you off the hook, but make sure the next time you venture into an evacuated area, you have a pass, got it? You’ve got twenty-four hours.”
“Yes, sir,” said Chase. “Thank you, sir.”
A few minutes later, the cruiser disappeared behind a turn in the road.
“Oh. Wow.” The words were sticky in my throat.
“Old bastard can’t even do his job right,” Chase said. “The regs clearly state you can’t allow a civilian to enter a Red Zone without a U-fourteen. Everyone knows that.”
“Thank God he didn’t!” I practically shouted.
Chase lifted a brow. “Well. Yes.”
A somber fog settled over us. I couldn’t help wondering what Chase would have done had I not said anything. I knew by his demeanor now that he hadn’t intended to shoot him, but I also knew he hadn’t taken the option off the table.
Nothing happened, I reminded myself.
But tomorrow, after we’d been registered missing, this scene would play out very differently.
It was time to get off the road.
WE drove through the empty streets of the Red Zone, hunkering down on an old hunting path beneath the charcoal sky. We hadn’t seen any more cruisers, but Chase said that they patrolled Red Zones to manage crime, and after our run-in with the MM, I wasn’t eager for a replay.
Still, waiting for dawn wasn’t any easier.
I made peanut butter sandwiches to busy my hands, and told myself that it did no good to focus on how we were sitting around while the clock on our safety dwindled down. There was nothing we could do until curfew lifted.
Chase took the sandwiches hesitantly when I shoved three his way.
“I didn’t spit in them,” I told him, long past feeling offended. His brows, arched in surprise, returned to their normal scowl. He may not have been used to someone taking care of him, but I felt compelled; making dinner was my usual chore at home. The reminder, sharp as a knife, brought on a new wave of desperation.
“I have to show you something,” he said, as if to reciprocate for the food I’d made. He went outside, sending a blast of cold air into the cabin of the truck, and reluctantly, I followed with the flashlight.
My breath caught when I saw the silver barrel of the gun emerge from his waistband.
It was too dark, and the woods smelled too heavily of dead leaves and earth. A sick sense of dread emptied my mind of the present and took control of my senses. I could still hear that fateful metal click, hear Randolph’s voice, pitched with excitement, accusing me of running.
“Hey,” Chase said quietly, startling me when he was closer than I expected. I shoved away from him, gulping a mouthful of frigid air.
“I’ve already seen it,” I told him. My heart was beating like I’d just run a mile, but I stood tall, hoping he hadn’t noticed my lapse.
Get it together, I told myself. Chase wasn’t a soldier anymore. I wasn’t at the reformatory. I shouldn’t have to remind myself of that.
His brows drew together as if in pain. For an instant I could have sworn he’d read my mind, but then his expression hardened once again.
“Do you have any idea how to handle a gun?” His voice was low. I knew he was thinking of what had transpired earlier with the highway patrol.
I cast him an acerbic look. “Do you really have to ask me that question?”
He gripped the barrel, offered the weapon to me.
“I… I don’t like guns,” I said.
“You and me both.”
That was surprising. As a soldier, he would have been used to carrying a firearm. When he didn’t give up, I plucked the handle out of his hand as if it were a dead rat and, surprised at its weight, nearly dropped it.
“Watch where you’re pointing that,” he snapped.
I winced and aimed the barrel toward the ground.
“It’s heavy.”
“It’s a Browning Hi-Power nine millimeter. A pistol.”
He swallowed, wiped his palms on his pants. Then he gently placed his hands around mine, forcing me to grip the handle but taking care not to press on my injured knuckles. My skin seared with heat where we connected, betraying the will of my mind, which wanted very much to despise him. It was less confusing after everything he’d done.
“Look. This on the side is called the safety. When it’s on you won’t be able to pull the trigger. All right so far?”
“Uh-huh.”
He guided my hands, showed me how to empty a clip.
“The magazine holds the thirteen rounds. It’s a semiautomatic, which means that it’s self-loading, but only after you cock back the slide. That chambers the first round. After that, all you need to do is pull the trigger.”
“How convenient.”
“That’s the idea. Now, we’re not really going to do this, but here’s what happens if you get in trouble: Safety off. Pull back the slide. Point and aim. Squeeze the trigger. Use both hands. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Say it.”
“Safety off. Pull back the slide. Point and aim. Squeeze the trigger.” A forbidden sense of power seemed to vibrate through my hands as I said the words.
He took back the gun, and my ability to breathe returned. But then he pulled out a knife.
For the next ten minutes I hunched over my knees while Chase sawed off my hair by the fistful. Though I knew we had to do as much as we could to avoid recognition, I couldn’t stop the gnawing concern that my mother, Beth, my friends, might soon find me unrecognizable. That all the old pieces of me—the pieces I knew—were being cut away just like my hair, leaving something distorted and raw in their stead. But that was stupid of course; I was still me. It was everything else that had changed.
We returned to the truck, where we sat on opposite ends of the seat and stared straight ahead in stubborn, tense silence. As the minutes passed I became acutely aware of his breathing—even, rhythmic—and soon found that my own had matched his tempo. How he could soothe me in a time like this, without even trying, how we connected on this most basic frequency made my heart ache for something impossible. Made me angle my body away so he wouldn’t see how much it hurt just to be near him again.
I missed him more now than I had when he’d been gone.
Only when the night grew so dark that I could no longer define his shape beside me did I allow myself to peek his way.
“Would you have left the MM if she hadn’t asked you?”
My voice sounded small, barely louder than a breath.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly.
I drifted to sleep, knees bound tightly to my chest, secretly wishing that his answer had been more certain. At least then I would have known how one of us felt.
“GOODmorning.”
He rested his elbows on the windowsill. The same old cap was fitted over his hair; the bill was arched in a permanent half-moon. Tired as I was, when I saw that smile I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep.
I shoved the window the rest of the way up, kneeling on my rumpled comforter in my nightshirt. The sky was as black as it had been when I’d gone to bed last night.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” I nodded toward his bedroom, directly across the space between our houses. He looked back at it, then shrugged.
“Wasn’t tired. Your mom and I had a nice walk. She told me to tell you to be good today. And not to do anything she would do.” He winked dramatically, like I knew she would have done.
I rolled my eyes, but my heart softened. I liked that Chase had walked her to the soup kitchen. Our town wasn’t as safe as it had been, especially in the dark mornings just after curfew lifted. She was never as vigilant as she should be when out alone.
“Thanks,” I said, “for looking out for her.”
He gave me a funny look, as if I should have expected no different.
I SNUGGLED my cheek deeper into my pillow and… it moved.
My eyes shot open.
I was in the cab of the truck. Not at home. Not at the reformatory. I was curled across the seat, my head on Chase’s thigh. And things between us were not as they once had been.
I jolted up.
The gray, predawn light cut through the film of condensation covering the window. It was Thursday, the day we’d meet the carrier… the day I’d see my mother.
The day that Chase would be reported AWOL.
I pushed back the MM uniform jacket I’d used as a blanket, trying to remember how it had come to be spread over my body….
Chase rubbed his hands over his stubbled face. His eyes grew wide when they landed on me. I ran a hurried hand through my short, uneven hack-job, and covered my mouth.
“Toothpaste,” I demanded. I didn’t have a toothbrush; my finger would have to do. But when I reached for the bag, he snatched it away and retrieved the item himself. I didn’t know why; I’d already seen the gun.
A blast of freezing air shocked me when I opened the truck door. Shivering, I walked far enough from the truck to shake off the dream but not so far as to lose sight of it completely.
It would be warmer farther south at the safe house. Maybe my mother was already there, head on her forearms, grumbling that there wasn’t any caffeinated coffee like in the old days. Maybe there were other mothers there, too—people who could support her so she wouldn’t worry so much and calm her down when she inevitably tried to launch some knee-jerk rebellion. I could see her leading the charge, a contraband magazine rolled in one raised fist, a trash can of burning Statute circulars to her side. Thinking of this made me smile, a secret smile I would never let her see for fear she’d take it as a sign of encouragement.
“Nice coat,” Chase said, breaking me from the trance. I hadn’t thought twice about slipping on his enormous jacket when I’d gone outside, but now I was suddenly embarrassed, torn between throwing it at him and nestling deeper into the bulky canvas. I ended up shuffling my weight, as if trying to negotiate a balance beam, until he spoke again.
“We need to find some other clothes,” he said, watching my struggle with some interest. “You’ll stand out wearing a combination of your uniform and mine.”
I forced myself to be still. I didn’t know what he had in mind, but I figured it was in the same vein as his procurement of the vehicle. The prospect of stealing didn’t bother me as much as I thought it might, as long as it didn’t hurt anyone or take too long.
I gathered the extra sleeve lengths in my fists and focused on the fact that by nightfall, my mother and I would be back together.
We were on the highway within a half hour.
JUST after seven, we passed a sign indicating that the Maryland border was nearing. I wanted to go straight to the checkpoint, but we couldn’t take the chance of backtracking into the highway patrol. Instead we were forced into a wide arc to go south. I checked a map every few minutes, tracing Chase’s proposed path. He’d shown me the exact coordinates where we would meet the carrier: 190 Rudy Lane in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
If we didn’t run into any more soldiers, we could still arrive in time.
Though there were no cars, our momentum was stunted. The road was pockmarked by missing chunks of asphalt and man-made debris: a bed comforter, the skeleton of an umbrella. We frightened a deer that had been eating the weathered remains of a Horizons cardboard box.
I took it all in with a mixture of awe and vanquished pride. I’d been nine when the War had taken Baltimore, and the remainder of the state had been evacuated before my tenth birthday. This was the only evidence of human life left.
Chase leaned forward slightly, steering around a rusted motorcycle laid out across the middle of the street. A strange, familiar feeling stirred in my belly.
“COMEon. You’re not scared, are you?” His grin was fast and wicked, his challenging tone deliberate. He knew full well I hadn’t backed down from one of his dares since I’d been six years old, and I wasn’t about to now.
I threw a leg over the back of the bike, squeezing the frame with enough force to bend the metal. His dark eyes flickered with amusement as he grabbed the handlebars and released the kickstand. A tilt of his head told me to shove back, and when I did, his long leg slid between me and the front of the bike.
I fumbled with the back of his shirt, needing something to hold on to.
“Try this.” He grabbed my hands, sliding them around his waist until they were pressing against his chest. The warmth of his skin soaked through my thin mittens. Then he reached back to grip behind my knees, and pulled me forward until my body was flush against his.
I didn’t breathe. We were touching in so many places I couldn’t concentrate. His right foot slammed down and the bike roared to life. The seat vibrated beneath me. My heart was pounding. I could already feel the panic begin to trickle through.
“Wait!” I yelled through the helmet. “Don’t I need instructions, or directions, or a training course, or…”
For just a moment, his fingers interlaced with mine over his chest.
“Lean the way I lean. Don’t fight me.”
DON’Tfight me, Ember.
Absently, I rubbed my right temple with my thumb. I had to stop thinking of the person Chase had been.
“How did Mom look when she was released?” I asked, shaking off the memory.
“What?” His shoulders hunched, and he glanced out the side window.
“How did she look? After the sentencing.”
“I never said she’d been sentenced.”
My back straightened. “You implied it. You said people either get sentenced or sequestered. And you said they let her go, right? So she fulfilled her sentence?”
“Right.”
I groaned. The vague commitment to an explanation was almost worse than the earlier vow of silence.
“How long did you hold her for?”
“Just a day,” he said.
“Don’t give me too many details, okay? I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
He was quiet, brooding again. What did I do to you? I wanted to shout at him. Why won’t you just talk to me? It would be so much easier to accept this person if I didn’t know him before he was guarded and wary and cold. If I couldn’t remember that once he’d been an open book and that the days had been too short to hold all our words. It was infuriating, and worse, it made me question if I’d grossly misjudged everything there had been between us.
He stretched his stiff neck from side to side.
“She looked…” he hesitated. “I don’t know, she looked like your mom. Short hair, big eyes. Little. What do you want me to say? I only saw her for a little while.”
I snorted at this summation. Leave it to a boy to be so literal.
“How did she seem? Was she scared?”
He considered this, and I could see a slight change in his face. A strain, pulling on the corners of his eyes. I was instantly worried.
“Yes. She was scared.” He cleared his throat, and I could tell her fear had pierced that callous shell. “But she was clearheaded, too. Not crazy, like some people get when they’re afraid. She was good under pressure, considering everything that had happened. She was absolutely determined we follow this plan.”
“Huh.” I slouched into the seat.
“What?” he asked earnestly. It crossed my mind that this was the first time he’d been interested in what I was thinking.
“I just never would have described her as clear-headed. I… I can’t believe I just said that. That’s terrible.” I cringed, feeling like I’d just betrayed her. “I don’t mean that she’s not capable of making decisions or anything. It’s just, under pressure, she’s usually… not.”
I saw a flash of our kitchen. Of her crying on the floor when I’d made Roy leave. Of all the times she’d brought home contraband, or gotten it in her head that she would tell off a soldier at the next compliance inspection. I was the safe and steady one. Not her. Now he was saying she didn’t need me, during the scariest time of our lives? That she could do this on her own? What had I been worrying about?
I pinched my eyes closed. They were burning, hot with tears I wouldn’t set loose.
“You’d have been proud of her,” he said quietly.
My heart cracked wide open. What was wrong with me? His words should have been a relief. But here I was, feeling inadequate because she could manage on her own. As if I were codependent or something.
Just as the wave rose, it receded, and left in its place was clarity.
I didn’t need her to feel strong, because she had made me strong. And I had made her strong, too. She was a big girl, like she’d told me countless times when I’d gotten fed up with her rabble-rousing. She’d make it to South Carolina; I just needed to get myself there.
“SORT of makes you feel short, doesn’t it?” I said as the highway approached an enormous wedge cut into the mountainside. The mustard-colored walls stretched up over three hundred feet on either side, so that only a band of silver sky was visible overhead. Trees and vines, in various states of maturity, reached their crooked fingers toward us, having been long without the care of city maintenance workers. Chase was forced to reduce our speed as we jostled over a mudslide that had spewed out onto the road.
A large sign on my right that read SIDELING HILL VISITOR’S CENTER, NEXT EXIT, had been tampered with: Just below the words, a cross and a flag had been spray-painted with a big neon green X through it. I’d seen symbols like this on the news when we’d had a television, but never in my hometown. It made me feel like a domesticated housecat thrown out into the wild.
“You are short,” he commented, so late I’d forgotten I’d said anything. I tried to make myself taller in the seat, as if to say Five four isn’t that short, but the truck bounced so hard over the ground it was impossible to stay rigid.
We passed through the gap of Sideling Hill and continued on toward Hagerstown. Thirty-three more miles, the sign said. It was evacuated so quickly that most stores had been abandoned, full of merchandise. We’d see how intact that merchandise still was, eight years later, then catch the connecting highway south to Harrisonburg.
“Do you think it’s safe?” I’d heard about gangs in the empty cities. The original purpose of the MM had been to reduce crime in these places.
“Nowhere is,” he said. “It’s been cleared by the FBR though.”
“That makes me feel so much better,” I said.
He connected to Interstate 81, a vigilant eye on the road as we entered Hagerstown. The first houses we came upon were large, surrounded by rolling properties and stout trees. As we drew closer to the heart of town, little neighborhoods sprouted, then lines of track homes and condos. A supermarket. A restaurant. All covered by a gray film of ash, like dirty snow, that had grown impenetrable to weather.
No kids played in the street. No dogs barked in the yards. Not a single car on the road.
The town, preserved by time, was absolutely still.
I noticed a shopping center on the right and pointed to it. Chase took the nearest exit, turning onto a street called Garland Groh Boulevard. Within a minute, he had pulled into an alley beside an old sporting goods store. We’d had one of these at home, but it had closed during the War. The MM had turned it into a uniform distribution center.
I could see the empty highway just beyond the parking lot, a straight shot to the checkpoint. My heart pounded in my chest. It was a little more than five hours before the MM would report Chase AWOL. We’d have to get what we could and get out. Fast.
Chase unhooked the wires near his knees, silencing the engine. Before he opened the door he removed a slender black baton with a perpendicular handle from beneath the seat. His face grew dark when he caught me staring at it with wide eyes.
The other weapon was in the front pouch of the bag. In case we ran across people, he didn’t want anyone seeing we had a gun. It would have been like hanging a hundred-dollar bill out of your pocket and hoping someone didn’t steal it.
“Stay close, just in case,” he told me.
I nodded, and we stepped outside the safety of the truck. Our shoes left footprints in the thin layer of gray ash over the asphalt.
I stayed close beside Chase as we rounded the front of the building. The store’s tall windows had been shattered, the remaining glass forming icelike stalactites that hung from the green-painted frames. The columnar handles of two French doors were bound together by a thick metal chain and a padlock, but the glass on either side was missing.
I scanned the parking lot behind us as Chase stepped through the doorframe. Apart from a scorched Honda that someone had set fire to years ago, it was deserted.
I breathed in sharply as I followed him inside.
A cash register was dumped on its side directly in my path. Metal racks and tables had been overturned or tossed into the aisles. Much of the clothing was missing, probably stolen, and what was left was strewn about as though a tornado had taken the interior of the building. As I made my way farther inside I spotted exercise machines and weight sets, all tagged by neon spray paint with the same symbol: the MM’s insignia X’d out. A rack of sporting equipment spilled onto the weather-stained, laminated floor. Baseballs, footballs, and flat basketballs were peppered all the way to the far wall.
“Try to find some clothes. I’m going to see what else I can pull together.”
I nodded. Even though I knew it was ludicrous based on the condition of the place, I checked for security cameras.
“You won’t get caught,” Chase said, reading my mind. “Anyway, look around; it’s not like you’re going to do this place any more damage.”
He had a point, but the last weeks had made me paranoid, and this place was scary. I worried that somehow the MM might be spying on us. That this was a trap.
I was glad that Chase wanted to go upstairs, because that’s where the arrow and sign for WOMEN’S CLOTHING pointed as well. The frozen escalator groaned beneath our weight as we climbed toward the camping section. It seemed surreal that people used to camp recreationally, but I knew Chase and his family had done that a lot when he was little. As he departed toward the steel racks, I felt a twinge of panic.
“You’ll just be over there?” I pointed to a mangled tent across the floor.
Something changed in his face when he registered my concern.
“I won’t be far,” he said quietly.
A central skylight gave the top floor a faint glow. The closer I got to the far wall, the more shadowed the area became, until I had to squint to see the floor. I stepped gingerly over the rubble crowding the aisles and found several racks of clothing in the back that looked relatively untouched. The tops were all fitted, and the pants were bootleg—that had been the style back then—but old as they were, they were new to me. Though the fabric was dusty, these clothes still held the crisp, folded lines and size stickers. I hadn’t owned clothing that didn’t come from a donation center since my mother had lost her job. Despite the circumstances, the thought had me giggling.
There was a special on women’s hiking boots: $59.99. Free for me! I thought guiltily, and searched through the shoe boxes strewn across the floor for my size. We never would have been able to afford these, even eight years ago. With inflation, these shoes would be well over $100 now. I was getting $100 shoes! I couldn’t wait to tell Beth.
If I ever talked to her again.
I forced the thought from my mind. Behind me was a display of jeans, and I quickly grabbed a pair in my size. A winter coat off the floor had minimal dust covering it, so I took that too. Then a tank top, a fitted tee, a thermal shirt, and a sweatshirt. I grabbed some extra socks, just to be safe, and an unopened package of underwear. It hit me that my mother might not have a change of clothes, either, so I grabbed one of everything for her also.
But as I made my way into the changing area, the laughter died in my throat. The dressing room was the size of a closet, and without the bright overhead lights, it looked like the containment cell I had seen in the shack.
I wasn’t about to shut myself inside.
I scanned for Chase but couldn’t find him. I was glad he hadn’t seen me falter; the last thing I needed was him thinking I was afraid of guns and the dark. With a deep breath, I dropped the items right where I was and hurried to change before he came looking for me.
The jeans fit pretty well, though they were loose around the waist from the weight I’d dropped at the reform school. I was midway through pulling down the tank top when I heard rustling behind me.
I spun toward the sound and saw Chase, ten feet away, wearing jeans and a new sweatshirt and carrying a pack over one shoulder. I twisted back away from him, the tank still hiked above my bra.
“Give me a second!” My voice hitched. “Turn around or something!”
He didn’t listen. He closed the space between us. I heard him breathing, felt the closeness of his body. I was frozen in place, but inside, every inch of me was taut and live with electricity. How long had he been standing there, watching me?
“What happened to you at the reformatory?” His voice was just above a whisper, hedged with a barely restrained violence.
“What?” As if submerged in a pool of ice water, my fingers finally thawed enough to pull down my shirt. I threw the other pieces over top.
“When I got there, they brought me down to that room, and I heard you. I can’t get it out of my head.”
The shack. He’d interrupted Brock and the soldiers just before my punishment. I’d screamed. The memory of it was enough to make me ill.
“You want to talk about this now?” I asked, incredulous.
He didn’t wait for me to turn back around. Suddenly he was in front of me. He leaned down, a breath away, and stared into my face. Both of his hands gripped my shoulders. I bit back a wince at the pressure.
“What did they do to you?”
“What did they do to me?” I shook out of his hold. “You’re the one who sent me there! Now it matters what happens to someone else when you disappear?”
The betrayal, the resentment, stormed through me. After he’d been drafted, he hadn’t called or returned my letters. He’d sent no word that he was alive, that he was okay. He hadn’t checked in on my mother and me. His promise that he would come back was a lie. Because a soldier had come back, not him. And that soldier had ruined everything.
He faltered back as though I’d shoved him. His hands went to his short hair.
“What made you do it?” I rolled on. “I know you… cared once. About me and Mom. Don’t even try to say you didn’t.” My fists squeezed so tightly the nails bit into my flesh. The angry bruises on my knuckles sent a jolt of pain up my arms. I was laying too much on the line; I could see it in his face, the conflict raging in his eyes. Did I want to know this answer? Or would it crush me when, more than ever, I needed to be strong?
His mouth opened but then shut. His gaze met mine, a kind of wild desperation in it that begged me to read his mind. But as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t. I didn’t understand. What is it? What are you afraid to tell me?
“What happened?” I asked, this time softer.
His eyes hardened, like glossy stones.
“I don’t know,” he said. “People change, I guess.”
He grabbed the backpack, stuffed with supplies, and headed down the stairs.
The shock doused my rant like a frigid bucket of water.
I laced the new boots as quickly as I could with my trembling hands and followed.
“WHAT did you find?” I asked Chase at the bottom of the escalator when my breathing had returned to normal. He was gloomy again; I could almost see the storm clouds over his head, which overrode my hurt and rekindled my irritation. People change? Not good enough. Obviously he was different, but that didn’t explain why he’d arrested us or set us free, it just made me want to kick him again. And it made me want to kick myself even more, because despite his secrets, I was worried. I hadn’t made up that crazed look in his eyes. Something dark was inside of him. Something cancerous. That was what was changing him.
He didn’t want to talk about the past? Fine. Probably better anyway. We needed to focus on finding the checkpoint.
“A first-aid kit and a tent. Some dehydrated food that the rats didn’t get.”
I cringed and shoved the extra folded clothes, along with my reformatory sweater, under the flap. He fastened a bulging sleeping bag around the bottom of the sack without once looking up at me.
“We should go,” he said, throwing the backpack over his shoulders.
I didn’t have a watch, but I guessed that it was probably about eight. The checkpoint was still almost two hours away.
Outside, the parking lot was still vacant. I didn’t know why I thought it might not be. The high clouds from the morning were pressing lower and had grown pewter since we’d entered the store. The air, which smelled faintly of sulfur, had a chilly, electric feel.
I followed Chase around the outside of the building and nearly slammed into him when he stopped abruptly.
My body reeled, sensing the danger from Chase before I saw it for myself.
There were two men outside our truck. One was in his late twenties, with unkempt black hair and a hooked nose. He wore a gray hooded sweatshirt and baggy camo pants. A hunting rifle was cocked over his left shoulder. The other man was halfway into the cab of the truck; I saw the dirty skater shoes sticking out beneath the driver’s side door.
“Rick, hey!” hissed the first man. He swung the rifle toward us in a wide, sweeping arc and butted it against his shoulder. I heard the fateful click as he chambered a round.
My heart stopped. Guns were contraband for civilians and had been since the War. Only the MM carried them.
Or AWOL soldiers. Which I was pretty sure they weren’t.
The man I took to be Rick emerged from the vehicle. He was tall, not as tall as Chase but still a head above me. He was thick, too; even through his capacious clothing I could tell he was muscular. His muddy hair was long to his shoulders, and he tossed it back with a flip of his head. There was an eager expression on his face.
“Morning, brother,” Rick called out.
Chase said nothing. His face was as hard as steel.
“Maybe he’s deaf,” said the other man.
“You deaf?” asked Rick.
“No,” Chase answered.
“It’s been too long since you were around people then, brother. When someone says ‘Good morning,’ you’re supposed to respond back.”
“I don’t make small talk when someone’s pointing a rifle at my chest.” Chase’s tone was low, very controlled. “And I’m not your brother.”
Rick looked to his friend, then back to us. I noticed that their skin, and even their eyes, held a yellow tint, which clashed against the gray sky and the gray ash.
“Stan, you’re not making our friends very comfortable.”
Stan chuckled but did not lower the weapon. The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
Rick turned his attention to me. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
My hands squeezed the jacket in my arms. I didn’t respond, trying to think fast. I might be able to reach the gun in Chase’s bag, but not without drawing the attention of the rifle carrier.
“See, Stan, you scared the poor thing.”
Rick stepped forward. Chase shifted deliberately in front of me, and Rick smirked.
“Oh, don’t be stingy, brother. Didn’t your mama teach you to share?”
Stan was laughing raucously behind him. I couldn’t swallow. My throat felt very thick.
Chase took a step toward the truck. I clung to his shirttail.
“Whoa now. Where you going?” Rick swaggered closer.
“We’re leaving,” Chase said with authority.
“You’re leaving. But not both of you.”
“I’m not going with you!” The words leapt from my throat. Chase stiffened.
“Ooh, she’s feisty!” Rick said, as though this was a delicious quality. I remembered how Randolph had groped me and called me “trash.”
Chase shifted his weight. Swiftly, Rick’s hand shot behind his back, reaching for something tucked within his belt. Chase knew exactly where I was without having to look. Roughly, he shoved me back, shielding me completely with his body.
I saw Rick rip the leather case off of a thick, gleaming knife that hooked into a menacing point.
Danger pulsed in my ears. For some reason, the knife scared me more than the rifle had. I couldn’t think why. I couldn’t think anything.
“Leave the pack,” Rick ordered. “I’ll take the keys and the truck.”
“Get in the truck,” Chase told me quietly.
I didn’t know what to do. Chase wouldn’t look at me. He couldn’t possibly think I would leave him here alone against two armed men. Our best chance was together. If they didn’t want me hurt, maybe, maybe, they’d spare him.
He shrugged out of his jacket and backpack, and let them slide to the ground.
“Chase,” I whispered, “I’m not leaving.”
I shouldn’t have said what I did inside the store. Now he was going to try to protect me, to make up for abandoning me before.
“Get in the truck,” he commanded. Stan was approaching us quickly, the gun still pressed against his shoulder. His finger was on the trigger.
“No!” I said forcefully.
“Aw, it’s all right. Daddy will take care of you,” said Rick. Stan laughed.
“Take it easy,” Chase told them, and reached beneath his untucked flannel shirt into his pocket.
“Slowly, brother,” warned Rick.
Both men were close now. They watched Chase’s hands, as did I.
In a flash of movement, Chase tore the black baton from his belt and swung it upward into the double barrel of Stan’s rifle. The metal on metal sandwiched Stan’s fingers, eliciting a howl of pain. The gun clattered to the ground.
Chase used the upward momentum of the baton to cut sideways into Rick’s jaw. Upon impact, the nightstick flew from his hands and cracked against the side of the building. Rick stumbled, then lurched to his feet, barreling toward us, knife first. A flash of terror slashed through me just before I was roughly shoved out of the way. An instant later I heard a tear and a growl, and watched as a crimson line bloomed from Chase’s bicep around the back of his arm. The flannel fabric clung to his damp, bleeding skin.
“Chase!” I screamed, clambering to my feet.
Stan swore, reminding me of his presence. On impulse, I sprinted around him toward the gun, but as quickly as I reached it, he was upon me. His body, heavy and rank with old sweat, arched over my back. I clenched my jaw, and wrapped my fingers around the wooden handle of the rifle. The tender skin of my knuckles scraped against the asphalt.
Stan knotted his fist through my hair and jerked back hard. I cried out as the burn seared across my scalp and ripped away.
When I turned around, I saw that Chase had thrown Stan into the front of the truck. When he fell, Chase kicked him hard in the gut, and Stan collapsed to his knees and forearms, sputtering. I didn’t watch. I picked up the rifle and ran to the truck, stuffing it behind the seat without thinking twice.
I spun back just as Rick—face smeared with the blood that ran like a faucet from his nostrils—hurtled himself onto Chase’s back. Panic raced through me. I could not see the knife.
In a frenzy, I searched the ground, hoping that the weapon wasn’t embedded into Chase’s body, and instead found the nightstick near the front tires, where Stan was still laid out, gasping for breath. I picked it up, prepared to run back to aid Chase, but I was intercepted by Rick, wild-eyed and bloodstained and rabid. He grabbed the collar of my shirt, and heaved me around so fast that I lost my balance. I knew he meant to use me as a shield against Chase.
I swung the baton like a baseball bat in all directions. It connected twice, maybe three times with something solid, but I didn’t know who or what. My cropped hair was streaming around my face, blinding me. Then suddenly, I was flung to the pavement.
A sound halfway between a gasp and a gurgle overrode the pulse in my eardrums. I lifted my head and saw, in horror, that Chase had pinned Rick against the side of the store and was using the cement wall as leverage to choke him.
To kill him.
Rick’s yellow eyes bulged. He swiped drunkenly at Chase’s tightening grip.
“Chase!” I panted, the oxygen having been sucked from the air around me as I realized his intent. “CHASE!”
He registered the sound of my voice as though waking from a dream. Startled, he dropped Rick, who crumpled to the ground, motionless.
I stared at the body in absolute dread. He was still breathing. He was still alive.
Barely.
An instant later I felt a hard pull on my forearm as Chase lifted me almost completely off the ground. Blood was smeared across one cheek, but his face looked otherwise unharmed.
“Truck. Now.” His eyes were so black I could not see the deep brown irises around them.
I obeyed. I ran on numb legs to the open driver’s side door and slid across the seat. My eyes remained on the two men lying on the pavement. Chase moved fast, grabbing our supplies and shoving them inside. Within moments, the truck roared to life. The tires squealed as we flew from the parking lot.